Various personal emergency response systems (“PERS”) have been developed out of the necessity to summon help during emergency situations. Typically, such systems allow a person experiencing an emergency to simply press a button to get help. When the emergency button is pressed, a console uses a standard telephone line to dial an emergency response center. The operator at the emergency response center answers the incoming call and communicates through the console via two way voice communications. The operator then communicates to local emergency services, and help is summoned to the location of the emergency.
However, PERS have many limitations. For instance, a PERS does not provide the ability to communicate with a medical professional in non-emergency situations. For most non-urgent medical needs, a patient still has to visit a doctor's office. For many elderly people—those most likely to use a PERS—such visits to a doctor's office are inconvenient. Elderly people often are unable to transport themselves so transportation must be arranged. Medical offices can be crowded and can expose vulnerable patients to a variety of contagious illnesses. Still further, elderly persons often have difficulty in determining, remembering, and/or dialing phone numbers. This can make calling a doctor's office difficult. U.S. Pat. No. 5,305,370, U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2007/0082651 and 2008/008596 and European Patent Application No. 0 208 080, which are each incorporated by reference herein in their entirety, all suffer from this disadvantage.
Although some response systems may be used for both emergency and non-emergency situations, they are not compatible with existing PERS console-based systems. Typical PERS require a particular dual-tone multi-frequency (“DTMF”) signal to start a phone call. This usually is a tone corresponding to pressing the number “1” on a push button telephone. Similarly, to completely terminate an emergency call, the PERS usually requires a tone corresponding to pressing the number “9” on a push button telephone. This DTMF signaling is known as a digital “handshake and disconnect.” Systems that have been developed for both emergency and non-emergency communications lack this mechanism to maintain and terminate telephone calls and therefore typically are not compatible with common PERS systems.
For instance, U.S. Application Pub. No. 2004/0246128 to Menard (“128 application”), which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, describes a health and wellness communications system that can be used for emergency and non-emergency situations. The Menard system uses two-way communication devices and a bi-directional wireless communication network. The system includes a personal medical device with a user interface and network. The personal medical device may interact directly with a communications network or may interact with a personal wireless device, which in turn interacts with the network. In either case, the personal medical device may generate signals that are received by a central monitoring station. Alternatively, the personal medical device may communicate with a building control or a security system. The system of the '128 application suffers from the drawback that it is not readily compatible with existing PERS systems that communicate over standard telephone lines because it lacks digital “handshake and disconnect” signals.
In view of the above, there exists a need for an emergency response system that can be used for both emergency and non-emergency medical communication. There further exists a need for a system that provides this dual capability and is compatible with and works in concert with contracted, pre-programmed emergency response and medical triage nurse-line call centers. In particular, there is a need for a communication system that can be used for both emergency and non-emergency medical communications that provides digital “handshake and disconnect” signals in the form of tones recognizable to PERS systems.